About this book

Language: Bilingual in English and French

First volume in a planned zoogeographical series that will eventually cover all the reptiles of the world. Published by the author, this is a high quality taxonomic work that will be indispensable to herpetologists everywhere.

There are numerous families of reptiles spread throughout the world and the purpose of this work is to provide a global checklist of all reptiles.

This list has been compiled and treated zoogeographically and based on the six biogeographical regions of the world - Noetropical, Nearctic, Oriental, Australian, and the two regions treated in this volume, the Afrotropical and Palearctic regions.

In each region study, a general overview is given such as the regions' geographical area, ecology, and herpetology. Following this is a list of orders and families, and then an alphabetical listing of genus and species. Subspecies are not included for conciseness. The most recent taxonomy is used for genera, and at the end of each species list is a synonym and proposed synonym.

Further information is provided on the evolution of reptile families and the effects of climates through time, environment and ecology, and the recent influence of man on reptiles. A succinct bibliography completes this comprehensive work.

Contents

CONTENTS

FOREWORD CHAPTER I: GENERALITIES

A. Birth and drift of continents or the world distribution of main families 1. Precambrian 2. Paleozoic 3. Mesozoic 4. Cenozoic and Pleistocene 5. Evolution and present distribution of the main families

B. Climate and environment or the local distribution of species 1. Ancient climates and glaciations 2. Present climates 3. Environment and ecology 4. Dispersal means 5. Recent influence of Man